John Wesley
You can hear an audio recording of this post on episode 1 of the Methodical Methodist Podcast!
John Wesley was born in 1703. He was the 15th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. There were 19 children in all, but nine of them died before they had grown out of infancy or childhood. John Wesley grew up in Epworth and his father, Samuel was the pastor in that town. Samuel was not well liked by his parishioners. He was rigid, but he was very smart. And he influenced his children and taught them about Christianity. But it was really John’s mother, Susanna who really shaped John and his siblings. One time Samuel went away to London for a church conference and his temporary replacement wasn’t very effective and he didn’t care much for the people. So people stopped attending church and began to attend a Bible Study that Susanna held at her home for her children. Within a month or two there were two hundred people trying to fit inside Susanna’s kitchen for this Bible Study.
Samuel’s replacement got mad and sent a letter to Samuel. Samuel wrote to Susanna and told her it was illegal for women to preach and she was to stop immediately. She writes back and basically says, “I just want you to know that these people are starving spiritually, and if they end up starving and dying and go to hell their blood will be on your hands. So, if you want me to stop you tell me to stop, but otherwise I think we should keep going.” And of course after that he never said another word.
As a mother Susanna spent one hour a week with each one of her children. She would inquire about their souls. And this is a practice that John continued in his ministry when he formed small groups. Susanna helped to spiritually form her children.
There is a really interesting story about John Wesley when he was only five years old. One night, in 1709, while the entire Wesley family was asleep, someone came and set their house on fire. (John’s dad, Samuel, was convinced it was someone in his own congregation who didn’t like him.) The house burned so quickly that the Wesley family barely made it out alive. But when they got out, they realized that little John was still inside the house. Samuel tried to go back in and get him, but it was too late. The house was already engulfed in these huge flames. So, Samuel starts praying and commends John’s life to God’s care.
But then, out of nowhere, one of the townspeople saw John standing next to the upstairs window. So, some of the men climbed on each other’s shoulders and they pulled John out of the house just before the roof collapsed.
John’s mother Susanna believed that God had saved her son for some special purpose. Susanna quoted Zechariah 3:2, by calling John a ‘brand plucked from the fire.’ And over time, John also believed that God had spared him for some great purpose as well. And I think that this belief led to him forming the Methodist Movement.
Wesley became student of Christ College within Oxford University from the years 1720 to 1724. And it was there where he received his bachelor’s degree. He continued on a received his Master’s degree in 1728. In between that time, Wesley was ordained as a priest in the Church of England and he was elected a Fellow at Lincoln College in Oxford University where he taught Greek and Philosophy. Back then, a “Fellow” was essentially like a junior professor and it was really a high honor. And then he went and served as a priest alongside his father in Epworth.
Then, in 1729, Wesley made the decision to return to his alma mater, Oxford University, where his brother Charles was an undergraduate student. When he arrived back at Oxford, John learned that Charles and their friend William Morgan had formed this group called the Holy Club. Charles had formed this club as a way for him to enter into a more serious way to practice his faith.
John soon became the leader of this group, and the members would wake up early to engage in prayer, Bible study, and conversation. They also took Communion at least once a week. They began to go into town and visit people at the local prison, they would do mission work, and they would visit the sick. And they would do all this kind of outreach and service out in the community.
It wasn’t long until the Holy Club was given the nickname “Methodists.” In fact, they got this nickname even before John had joined the group. But being called a “Methodist” was actually one of the better of the nicknames they were called.
In addition to being called Methodists – they were also called Bible Moths, Super-ero-gation Men, the Godly Men, Sacramentarians, and Enthusiasts. They earned these nicknames because they had become so methodical in the way that they practiced their faith. And the name Methodist actually stuck.
John and his brother Charles continued their mission as Methodists, and this eventually led to a denomination that spread across England, the United States, and now there are Methodists all over the world.
But what I really want to explore today is this idea of being passionate about God; what God is doing in your life; and what God is doing in the life of the church.
John Wesley lived with complete passion and intensity. But he didn’t always have it figured out.
There’s a great story about John Wesley when he traveled to Georgia in order to serve as a missionary in Savannah. While on the ship sailing between England and America, there was a huge storm. The mainmast broke off, and people on the ship thought that they were going to die. And Wesley is also fearful for his life. But he noticed that there was this group of German Moravians who were just calmly singing hymns during the storm. Wesley watched them and was amazed by their faith.
So, Wesley arrives in Georgia despite this storm. And he continues this rigorous path to holiness. One of the first things Wesley did in Georgia was confiscate and destroy all the rum on board. The thing is, the rum had been sent so the passengers could celebrate their arrival in the New World. And here you have Wesley getting rid of it all. So, as you can imagine, most of the people were pretty mad. This is not a great way to win friends and influence people.
And Wesley doesn’t stop there. He starts imposing these rigid and rigorous expectations of holiness on his parishioners in Georgia. And by doing that, he starts to alienate some of his church members. At one point Wesley write in his journal that a parishioner actually told him, “I like nothing you do… Indeed there is neither man nor woman in the town who minds a word you say. And so you may preach long enough; but nobody will come to hear you.” I mean, I cannot imagine someone doing that to me on Sunday morning.
So, as you can see, things aren’t going so great for Wesley. He is rejected by the townspeople in Georgia. The main reason he even went to Georgia in the first place was to preach to the Native Americans, but he isn’t very successful in doing that either.
And then, along comes a woman named Sophia Hopkey. Wesley begin to mentor this girl at the request of her father. Maybe her father is looking for someone for her to marry. And then, Wesley and Sophia end up falling in love; But the only problem is that, at the time, Wesley believed that God did not want him to be get married because of his pursuit of holiness.
So, Sophia decides to marry a man named William Williamson. But when Wesley learns about this marriage, and he is heartbroken. In fact, he is so hurt that he refuses to serve Sophia and her husband communion.
This leads to Wesley getting arrested and put in jail. It’s just one bad thing after another. So, Wesley is released from prisoner before the trial. They keep delaying the trail, and Wesley knows that this is not end well for him, so he just flees back to England. He just leaves in the middle of the night.
Wesley had completely failed as a missionary in Georgia. When he arrived back in England he is was really struggling with his faith. So, he goes to Moravian missionary named Peter Boehler. And ironically, Boehler is preparing to leave for Georgia, and Wesley talks to him about what happened. And he tells him that he has planned to stop preaching until he could regain his faith. But Boehler has some really powerful advice for Wesley. He says, “Preach faith until you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”
And so that is what Wesley did. Wesley began to travel around the churches in England preaching boldly about faith. He preaches faith, as if he has it. Then on May 24, 1738 Wesley went to a Moravian meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. It was there that Wesley heard Martin Luther’s preface to the Romans being read aloud, and he had a faith experience.
In his journal, Wesley writes, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
This was a life-changing moment in Wesley’s life. This was the moment that Wesley was able to partner his works of mercy with his understanding of God’s grace. He finally realized that God’s grace is a gift. It isn’t something you can earn, but it is something that God gives to us freely. This understanding helped to define the way Wesley led the people called Methodists.
In his essay entitled The Character of a Methodist, John Wesley gives a great definition of what it means to be a Methodist. Wesley writes, “A Methodist is somebody who is serious about loving God with everything that is within them. And they are serious about loving their neighbor as they love themselves.”
According to John Wesley, that is what is what it takes to be a Methodist. Anyone can be a Methodist. We just need to be serious about what Jesus has called us to do. We just need to be serious about our faith.
And Wesley was very serious about his faith. Wesley started preaching in England at various churches he started to offend some of the preachers. Many of them refused to have him back. They mocked him and called him an enthusiast and fanatic. And by the end of 1738, only five churches in the London area would still have him in their pulpits.
About that time around the spring of 1739, Wesley’s friend George Whitfield, who was in the town of Bristol, wrote a letter to John telling him that he had started preaching outside in the fields because none of the churches would let him near a pulpit too. But he said, I am seeing thousands of people with tears running down their faces and God is working in their lives. You have got to come out here and check this out! And he invites John to come join him. So, Wesley travels to Bristol to see this for himself. And at first John was against preaching outdoors. He didn’t think it was very dignified.
But on April 1, 1739 Wesley witnesses George Whitfield preach to thousands of coal miners and their families. Wesley wrote about this experience in his journal saying, “I could scare reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields… but at four in the afternoon I submitted to ‘be more vile,’ and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people.”
I’ll love that phrase, “Be More Vile.” I can remember when I first felt my call into ministry, my pastor Drew Henry actually quoted this. Drew was supportive of my call, but this was kind of his way of letting me know the difficulty that comes along with the call of a preacher.
After this experience of watching George Whitfield, Wesley begins preaching outdoors and he spoke to the coal miners in Kingswood. The coal miners were a pretty tough groups of folks. They worked hard and died young. Their children were poor and uneducated. At that time there were no churches in Kingswood because it was kind of a scary place to start a church. But George Whitfield had already described the tears flowing down the coal covered faces of these miners as they listened to the gospel being preached. And Wesley saw this first hand as he preached to this huge crowd of coal miners, as he offered the idea of free grace to them. After this Wesley began preaching outdoors any chance he could get.
I went to Asbury Theological Seminary, and in the middle of the campus there is a life sized statue of John Wesley. It is pretty short. John was only 5 foot 6. But this short little statue depicts Wesley’s outdoor preaching. He has both hands up, one of them holding a Bible. No matter if it is sunny, raining, or snowing, that statue of John Wesley preaching is always there.
I think that is a perfect depiction of Wesley’s real life. He would go out to the market and he would stand on the square and sing hymns and preach to very huge crowds. He preached to so many people that one time, someone asked him, “How do you get so many people to come hear you preach?” Wesley replied, “Set yourself on fire with passion and people will come for miles to watch you burn.”
After preaching outdoors, Wesley would invite people to join a small group. They didn’t have altar calls yet back then. So, Wesley would invite people to come join these bands and classes of small groups, in order for them to explore their faith and deepen their commitment in following Jesus.
Well, Wesley was preaching to thousands of people and there were so many people who wanted to join these small groups… But the only problem was that there wasn’t enough room for all of them to join in a small group. So, they bought a piece of land, and they built the first Methodist meeting place called “the New Room” People would join in worship and having meetings on a daily basis here. And Wesley trained pastors to go out and spread the Gospel here as well. So, this is really where Methodism was first organized.
Wesley traveled on foot, on horseback, and later by carriage over 250,000 miles preaching outdoors. He averaged about fifteen sermons a week and had over 40,000 sermons total. He preached in nearly every town and village across England. He also preached Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He would preach anywhere he could draw a crowd. He was beaten, harassed, and at times pummeled with eggs, rotten vegetables, and even rocks. He did this for four decades.
Last year I actually read a significant portion of Wesley’s journals. And as you read through his journal, you can see, time and time again, examples of the local priests that would hire drunk people to disrupt Wesley while he was preaching.
At one point someone took a bull, and they drug the bull by a rope to the town where there were tons of people listening to Wesley preach. And then they would just send the bull through the middle of the crowd.
But Wesley describes, over and over again, how God would work within these situations.
Wesley describes preaching in the market at Bolton on August 28, 1748 and a large and wild crowd started shouting at him and actually threatened to knock him down from where he was standing.
Then, they started throwing stones and got behind the cross in the square and tried to push it down on him. Wesley described how he got right back up and just continue preaching, and he would even manage to silence the crowd.
It is amazing to me, because for nineteen years, he was pelted with rotten tomatoes, manure, and stones. For nineteen years on a weekly, even daily basis, he was dragged out before magistrates, beaten up, hit with rocks. And the Homes where he stayed were set on fire. But Wesley kept at it.
By the time Wesley was sixty years old he had preached thousands of sermons and the mobs had finally stopped. Literally millions had heard Wesley’s field preaching and felt God moving in their lives.
By this time, Wesley had actually become a celebrity and was invited to preach in nearly every pulpit throughout England. He had touched so many lives through the power of the Holy Spirit, and he had made such a difference throughout England that when Wesley died, every newspaper across Great Britain published his death and mourned him as a national hero. Wesley was even named, "the best loved man in England"
But here is the thing, Wesley never toned down his message.
In 1774, Wesley wrote a pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon Slavery.” In this pamphlet, he strongly opposed to the practice of slavery and the slave trade.
Then, in 1788, at the age of eighty-five, he preached a sermon against slavery in the New Room at Bristol. And this was a really bold thing to do, because Bristol was the center of the slave trade in England. And Halfway through his sermon people broke out in a fight in the congregation. They didn’t just get into an argument. No, they got in an actual fist fight. They were breaking the pews!
Now luckily, no one actually touched Wesley because he was an old man at this point, but Wesley knew he had to preach against slavery. He was not afraid to do it. He was not afraid to upset people.
Wesley lived to be eighty-seven years old. This was a very advanced age especially in the 1700s. In the last stages of his life, he continued to preach outdoors; in fact, he was eighty-seven the last time he preached under a tree – Again, this is the age Wesley was when he died.
Wesley peacefully passed away in his home in London. Before he died, he spoke the words, “The Best of all is, God is with us.” Then he tried to sing an Isaac Watts hymn, “I’ll Praise My Maker While I Have Breath.” But he was only able to get out were the words, “I’ll praise… I’ll praise.” And then, he uttered one final word to his friends: “Farewell.”
The thing that draws me most to John Wesley is that he lived with such passion. When he did something, whatever it was, he did it with complete intensity. He gave it his all. John Wesley did not hold back, no matter what.
And I think, for Christians, we have the opportunity each and every day to do the same thing. We have the opportunity to do everything with Purpose, Vision, and Passion. We have the opportunity to give more and more of ourselves to God each and every day. We have the opportunity to love God with all our heart mind soul and strength… and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
So, wherever you find yourself in life, I hope that you can find ways give it your all and not hold back.
I want to close with a special prayer that sums up this idea of following God with complete intensity and passion. This is a prayer that has been called the Wesley Covenant Prayer:
“I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”
May this be our prayer today and forever.
